Dinichthys

Name:
Dinichthys
‭(‬Terrible fish‭)‬.Phonetic: Di-nik-fiss.Named By: John Strong Newberry‭ ‬-‭ ‬1873.Classification: Chordata,‭ ‬Placodermi,‭
‬Arthrodira,‭ ‬Dinichthyloidea.Species: D.‭ ‬hertzeri,‭
‬sometimes spelled
herzeri‭ (‬type‭)‬.Diet: Carnivore/Piscivore.Size: Uncertain because only the head portions are
known,‭ ‬possibly up to the same size as Dunkleosteus.Known locations: USA,‭ ‬Canada.Time period: Givetian through to Famennian of the
Devonian.Fossil representation: Well-known but only from the
jaws and bony head armour.

Like
with may early discovered prehistoric animals such as the dinosaur
Megalosaurus,‭
‬and the pterosaurPterodactylus,‭
‬Dinichthys suffered
from the waste basket taxon effect.‭ ‬This is where sets of remains
that look similar to the holotype are assigned to the genus,‭ ‬but upon
closer inspection they turn out to actually represent different
animals.‭ ‬This has resulted in the long list of Dinichthys
species
being split up into separate genera including Eastmanosteus,‭
‬Titanicthys,‭
‬and the increasingly famous Dunkleosteus.‭
‬Today only
the original type species of Dinichthys hertzeri‭
(‬sometimes spelled
as herzeri‭) ‬remains valid for the genus.
As
an armoured placoderm
fish Dinichthys would have
been an apex
predator at the top of the food chain.‭ ‬Sharks were still very small
in comparison,‭ ‬and the giant marine reptiles would not start
appearing until the Triassic period.‭ ‬Many of the placoderm fish had
hard bony plates and the sharp powerful jaws of Dinichthys
were an
effective counter to this armour.‭ ‬Biomechanical studies have revealed
the related Dunkleosteus to have a multi-ton bite
force,‭ ‬and it's
perfectly reasonable to expect the same proportional bite force in
Dinichthys.Dinichthys
had the same kind of bony armour itself,‭ ‬although it
appears that from fossil evidence of both Dinichthys
and the predatory
placoderm group in general that this armour was only present upon the
head and jaws.‭ ‬It may be that instead of being there for protection,‭
‬the bony plates provided rigid fixing and support for the powerful
biting muscles.Dinichthys
is often confused with Dunkleosteus because of
their similar
appearance,‭ ‬and this is not helped by the fact that reproductions of
Dinichthys were for a long time based upon D.‭
‬terrelli,‭
‬the species
that was split from Dinichthys to form the Dunkleosteus
genus.

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